Does OpenDNS Really Speedup Web Pages?
I just read a post on Lifehacker about OpenDNS, a free service that claims to speedup web surfing sessions and offer phishing protection. The diagram I’ve poached tries to explain why.
OpenDNS provides free DNS server addresses which you enter on your home router or within your computer’s network settings. The service caches the billions of DNS requests made by its users into a giant database on a distributed network, which turbocharges surfing for everyone who uses it.
At first I thought fantastic, and then once I’d paused and thought about it, I can’t see how OpenDNS’s servers could ever be faster than my ISP’s DNS servers which are only a couple of hops away, even if they are more efficient.
I’m also a bit sceptical of how genuine the claims of the service are, when an alternative explanation of why they launched the service is to sell their own ads when users type in the wrong url.
Does anyone use OpenDNS that can vouch for it?
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DNS speed is two parts:
- network latency
- software speed/cache size
Yes, we’re across an ocean from you in the UK right now, but we’re able to take advantage of our software speed and cache size (and good connections in central data centers) to make up for network latency to a degree. We have many folks in the UK and throughout Europe using us now.
Read this
http://blog.opendns.com/2006/11/02/five-questions-with-an-opendns-user-richard-hughes/
We are going to get London going eventually, which will eliminate the network latency concern, too!
John Roberts
OpenDNS
How much bigger are your servers than a typical ISP? I switched my DNS servers over temporarily last night, and to be honest it was hard to compare speeds.
Why it might be a good idea to use Open DNS…
I decided to read more about open dns after I read Evertons article “Does open dns really speed up web pages” on his great website connected internet. He was trying to find out why a dns service that was using servers in the United States w…
Busy day at ISPCON, so just getting back to you.
http://blog.opendns.com/2006/08/28/london-servers-coming-soon-still/
has a picture of the physical servers, but that’s hardly the point.
Cache is what we are talking about
http://www.opendns.com/what/#faster
John Roberts
OpenDNS
John
Is there anyway of actually testing which way is faster, rather than just trying to see if pages are loading faster or slower than I can blink?
I seem to remember using a site to see what DNS each of the main UK servers was holding for my domain, when i moved servers recently and was waiting for my DNS to propogate.
Good question Everton. I was also thinking about ways to measure the gain in speed.. We are talking about milliseconds here, right ? Should not make that much of a difference to the human eye..
[Comment ID #28875 Will Be Quoted Here]
If you come up with a method Martin, then let me know and I’ll do the same analysis, so we can average our results.
Maybe we should rope in some of our joint readers to get more data points….I can feel a joint post coming on!
OpenDNS is another attempt to centralize and control an aspect of the internet that was fully intended, by overt design, to be open and decentralized. Is OpenDNS’s business model based on altruism? Of course not. Do you see a .org at the end of their name and a not-for-profit designation?
The speed benefits of OpenDNS are laughable to anyone with any knowledge of how DNS operates. Seriously, these guys must walk around their offices giggling to each other that folks out in the world perceive some sort of speed benefit. Anyone that does either had horribly overloaded DNS servers to begin with, or are perceiving a gain via cognitive dissonance.
Bottom line - want to block ads and phishing sites? Get any halfway decent internet security package. Need faster DNS because you think your ISP’s DNS servers are bad? Pick one. Any one. Google “fast DNS” and pick from the oodles of servers out there that people brand as “fast”.
OpenDNS is another case of the Internet’s Emperor and his new clothes.
OpenDNS delivers a faster, safer, smarter DNS.
Try for yourself. The speed benefits vary by your situation and network, but for most, they are notable, for the reasons indicated in my earlier post.
Reliability is also important. http://system.opendns.com/ documents ours, and when major outages occur (see http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Responds-To-Outage-89943), the advantages skyrocket.
Content filtering (phishing, optional otherwise) are built on top of the foundations of speed and reliability — but up to you why you choose OpenDNS. I just hope you do.
Yes, OpenDNS is a business. So are eBay, Google, and thousands of other useful services… not sure of your point. By providing a useful service, OpenDNS gets people to use our service, which helps our business. If we’re not useful, no business.
I’ll end by simply saying: try for yourself. It’s simple and free.
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Write down your previous settings, so you can switch back anytime.
I don’t think you’ll want to.
John Roberts
OpenDNS